Batting or hitting tees have been used for many years, not only for younger children who do not yet have the coordination to hit a pitched ball but also for batting drills and to build the hitter's strength up by repeatedly hitting a stationary ball. Many such tees have been sold by Jugs Sports and other companies. Tees typically include a base and tube assemblies, with the tube assemblies having lower ends connected to the base and upper ends designed to hold the ball to be hit at a height approximating that of the player's strike zone. Many batting tees have a single position to which a tee may be mounted. The drawback with single position batting tees is that every time the hitter plans to hit to a different field, such as left or right field, the batter's stance needs to be changed. This renders the practice less realistic and therefore less valuable to the batter since it is difficult or impossible for the batter to change his or her stance as the ball is coming in from the pitcher.
By providing a batting tee that can position a ball at various locations over home plate, the batter can be taught to pull inside pitches and drive outside pitches, providing a more realistic practice experience in that the batter's stance does not need to be changed to hit the ball to different fields. For this reason, suppliers of batting tees have introduced batting tees with three or even five different locations on the plate to which the batting tee may be mounted. One such batting tee has been sold by Jugs Sports.
Providing a batting tee that will permit batters to practice hitting balls on the inside and outside corners, would require the batting tees to be positioned at the very periphery of the plate. This is often not practical so as a result, multiple-position batting tees are often larger that an actual home plate. This results in the batting tee plate being unwieldly to carry, particularly for a child who might be asked to help carry batting practice equipment. Given the required dimensions of a multiple-tee home plate, the plate may even drag on the ground when carrying is attempted, particularly if a child is asked to do so. Multiple-position batting tees are also heavier than a one-position batting tee since the mounting of the tee to the plate needs to be heavy duty and is often fabricated of metal. The weight aspect exacerbates the problem with carrying a multi-position batting tee.